Bombing of Dresden

The Bombing of Dresden (13-15 February 1945) was a British/American aerial bombing attack on the German city of Dresden that took place during World War II. Until then, Dresden was considered safe because of its unique architectural beauty and its relative strategic unimportance. However, in January 1945, Royal Air Force bomber operations chief Sydney Bufton sent a memo to Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Norman Bottomley, suggesting that a coordinated RAF air attack to aid the Soviet offensive in eastern Germany would have a detrimental effect on German morale. The British and Soviets agreed that a heavy attack on Dresden would cause great confusion in civilian evacuation from the east and hamper movement of reinforcements from other fronts. On 4 February 1945, Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff Aleksei Antonov persuaded the British to carry out bombings of oil plants, tank and aircraft factories, and the cities of Berlin and Dresden.

The city was known to be overcrowded with 500,000 refugees, but it was felt that the inevitably high casualties might in the end help to shorten the war. Over 800 British bomber planes under the command of Arthur Harris carried out the main thrust, followed by two further daylight attacks by the US 8th Air Force. Several hundreds of thousands were wounded and around 100,000 people were estimated to have been killed in the firebombing; the "military huts" that the Americans targeted were actually refugee centers. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was said to have wept with rage for twenty minutes after hearing of the bombing, and he criticized Luftwaffe head Hermann Goering's indolence and love of comforts as Germany was destroyed. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill, who had approved of the raid, later distanced himself from the raid, calling it an "act of terror" before Harris' protest over this caused Churchill to withdraw his comment. Into the 21st century, Dresden would continue to be rebuilt, as it was levelled during the bombing.